Gallaudet's Angela McCaskill: Support For Gay Marriage Vote Is 'Pro-Democracy'

By

Carlos Santoscoy

|
October 17, 2012

Dr. Angela McCaskill, the chief
diversity officer at Gallaudet University, says she signed a petition
seeking to repeal Maryland's gay marriage law because she believes in
democracy.

McCaskill was put on paid leave last
week after school officials learned that she was a signatory to the
petition which put the law up to a popular vote on November 6.

“I thought it was important that as a
citizen of the state of Maryland I could exercise my right to
participate in the political process,” McCaskill said at a press
conference on Tuesday. “I am pro-democracy.”

McCaskill's attorney repeatedly said
that her client has never publicly taken a stance on marriage
equality, adding that McCaskill is not anti-gay.

Gallaudet University President T. Alan
Hurwitz said on Tuesday that McCaskill may return to her job but that
she and the university would need to “work together to respond to
the concerns that have been raised.”

While McCaskill has not taken legal
action, her attorney, J. Wyndal Gordon, said she wants to be
compensated for the emotional distress the “scandal” has
inflicted upon her.

“I was shocked, hurt, insulted. I
was humiliated,” McCaskill, who is deaf, said with the assistance
of an interpreter. “I am dismayed that Gallaudet University is
still a university of intolerance, a university that manages by
intimidation, a university that allows bullying among faculty, staff
and students.”